


Apples and Knives

by viciouswishes



Category: Firefly
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-01
Updated: 2006-11-01
Packaged: 2017-10-20 02:38:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/207881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viciouswishes/pseuds/viciouswishes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jayne and Christmas have never gotten along.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Apples and Knives

**Author's Note:**

  * For [_minxy_](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=_minxy_).



> Setting: pre-movie

Jayne didn't grow up with much. He remembers celebrating Christmas - his momma singing Hallelujah and dropping too much money in the preacher's basket and cutting down a tree with his father when Jayne could barely reach the branches. Things were even worse on the Cobb homestead when his father died. When he was 10-years-old, Jayne's momma gave all five of them shiny, red apples. Jayne can't recall ever tasting something as delicious and exotic as that apple.

After he went out on his own, Jayne had never been one for celebrating Christmas. Usually it involved drinking and passing out in a whore's bed. It was too expensive for him to go to his family home, but he always managed to mail his momma something for her. Something that she wouldn't buy herself - like a new dress or shoes or a crate of strawberries.

"Come on, Jayne," Kaylee says, tugging on his sleeve. "Only got a few hours before the Captain wants us back on Serenity."

Half the stores they pass are too expensive. But that doesn't stop Kaylee's face from lighting up at the candy and elves in pointed hats. There are too many people running around and it's too crowded for Jayne's tastes.

"What about this?" Kaylee holds up a knife in a finely-made leather holster. "For the Captain. He's always complaining that he needs a shaper one."

Jayne eyes the price tag. "You getting paid more these days, niú?"

Kaylee shakes her head. "It's the holidays, Jayne. Got to spend a little more."

When they get up to the counter, Jayne takes out his money and pays the shopkeep what he knows Kaylee can't. "Don't say it," he says. He doesn't want it getting around that Jayne Cobb is anything but a mercenary.

Kaylee just grins at him, and Jayne thinks that maybe Christmas isn't so bad anymore.


End file.
